Hawaii - Day 2

This is Cozette's dream vacation. She gets her Mom's (mostly) undivided attention. No one puts her down to do dishes or laundry. Plus, I was a little tired of watching tv, so the baby and I had a lot of lovely conversations.
Tony and I did make it to one Hawaiian hot-spot - Dave's Ice Cream, otherwise known as the best ice cream in these United States. I had Haupia. Tony had Kulolo.

Hawaii - Day 1

Let me just start by saying that this trip would never have happened without cool Aunt Rachel. She didn't just watch my lovely hooligans, she held Cozette while I finally packed my bag at midnight (before my 8am flight). I was just too busy trying to stock my fridge and do laundry to pack sooner...oh, and I didn't want to go.
Seriously. Tony did a really poor job selling me on this trip. It went something like, "I hate this stupid job and might quit any day now, but will you come visit me in Hawaii, while I'm working too much to actually spend time with you?" Not very enticing. It is the "cultivate low expectations, so people will be impressed when you deliver" approach. A very good strategy for Navy families.
Anyhow, I packed light (almost too light - I remembered to pack underwear at the very last second!)and got up early. Rachel drove me to the Kitsap Airporter. Cozette loved the Airporter and the plane ride. Any transportation method where she can be held by Mom is ok by her.
Hawaiian airlines: they charge too much for checking luggage, but at least they feed you! I read a great book on the way there - The Guernsey Island Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I was so excited to find an author I liked (especially since it was a random airport bookstore purchase)...until I read that she was dead...and that was her first book. How depressing.
Tony met me at my gate. I think he prides himself on being able to charm his way past security. He played the military card, and I suspect he played the "my wife is travelling alone with an infant" card as well. It's always so nice to see him! He smiles affectionately and listens to me prattle about books and kids and other inconsequentials.
We got all of our tourist activities out of the way on the very first day. After addicting me to the aptly named "Yummy Korean BBQ", we rushed to the flea market for Hawaiian honey and dresses. Then, I squeezed in a short nap before heading to the "Paradise Cove" Luau.
We drank fruity drinks, made leis, watched the hula show. It was right on the beach, by Ko Olina, so there was a gorgeous sunset out over the water. Sadly, all I could think about was how much Sofia would love making animals out of palm leaves, that Annika would have volunteered to learn the hula on stage, that Anthony would have blushed his way through the hula show...that we'd be pulling Jonny down from palm trees. It's so hard to enjoy anything when you can't share it with the people you love. (Not that Tony doesn't count - he's just lacking in child-like enthusiasm)! Tony said he feels that way every time he travels alone. The San Diego Zoo must have been really depressing. Lovely. Tiring. Collapsed into bed.

Momma #2

Sofia is turning into a baby pro. She knows exactly how to get the smiles, soothe the cries, and rock the baby to sleep. Once she gets diaper-changing down, she'll be good to go!

Who did we forget this time?

..not really eventful, just busy.

I finally managed to tear the kids away from the Wii, so we could start our trip to Snohomish for a cousin birthday party. We made it all the way to Silverdale, when I realized we had left someone at home...my debit card. And, sadly, my two dollars wasn't going to get us on the ferry. Home again, home again.

Retrieved card. Decided to drive around. Lucky for me, Sofia can get Cozette to sleep with a pacifier. Unlucky for me, the other kids are so dang loud, they kept waking her up again!

We did eventually make it. Cozette survived. The girl had a rockin' time at Maddy's party (thanks to her super-cool Aunts). I was invited to Beth and James' house for yum-yums. Beth's rocking chair (she's jumped on the spray paint band-wagon) is beyond cute! ..and awesome Rachel let me dump some of my unwanted dirt on her 5 acres. 10 brownie points for Rachel! She's about to score about 50 more by watching my kids (baby not included) while I go to Hawaii. I should probably start packing.

Those pictures I promised.

Have I mentioned that we're doing swim lessons right now? Our trip to the lake made me overly enthusiastic about swimming, and, in my fit of enthusiasm, I signed the kids up for swim lessons. Our first day of swim made me question my judgement. I won't go into detail about the insanity. Today, things improved. James actually got into the pool for a while (to take a ride on one of those huge mats) and was, if not "good", at least less naughty. Honestly, I feel like swim lessons are recreational at his age. I just didn't want to exclude him. I'm really hoping that Jonny and Annika can improve - two less drowners would be nice!

Adventures in Shopping

We had some shopping adventures today. Shopping with my children is always interesting, for one reason or another.

First of all, it puts us in the public eye, so we get to field all kinds of questions about the size of our family. When the kids are being good, I get good comments - about what wonderful big helpers I have, and how important it must make them feel. When the kids are rowdy, I mainly just get interesting looks than silently say how crazy people think I am. They're probably right, but when you are a little crazy, you just have to go with it and make it work for you.

Anyhow, I had a Target gift card that was burning a hole in my pocket...I had to go. I bought diapers, socks, and tiny (6-12 mo.)shoes for Cozette, since it was a baby gift. Sofia talked me into a "Tide on the go" pen to remove some unsightly stains from her Pokemon. (I'm hoping that conscientious "Poke-Mom" will translated to conscientious Mom someday.) Then I bought some gifts and thank-you cards. James and Cozette slept most of the time, so it was very uneventful.

Costco...where all of my real shopping adventures take place. No, I didn't leave my car running again. (In case you where wondering)

Some background information: I told the kids over a year ago that I would buy a Wii when they finished reading the Book of Mormon. (Just for the record, they chose the task - not me.) Since then, whenever someone asks if we have a Wii, I say, "No, my kids don't want one." The kids yell, "Yes we do!", to which I reply, "If you really wanted one, we would have one by now." A couple of them finally got serious, and today we went to purchase the Wii.

Back to Costco! Here I am at Costco, buying my Wii (and some danish pull-aparts...and some licorice), minding my own business, when the kids see the "Converta-benches" I've been eyeing. They're actually pretty cool - if you get two of them, they turn can turn into a picnic table! It's like having less complicated, more useful transformers in your back yard. The only reason I hadn't bought them yet, was that I was positive I couldn't fit them in a van that's already quite full of children.

Before I know it, Anthony is back with a flat-bed cart, loading up 2 converta-benches. I'm still sure they won't fit in the car. The kids are more optimistic. To make a long story at least slightly shorter, I set a new personal (high) spending record for Costco and drove home with the kids in a converta-bench fort.

Sofia even made me put them together tonight, by trying (unsuccessfully) to do it without me. Having older children is certainly interesting. Sometimes it's less clear who is running the show, but I'm happy to be raising such independent little people.

Sorry about the long, boring story. Tomorrow there will be boring pictures to go with it. :)

Something I got done this week - and something that I didn't

Yes, these are pictures of what I did get done. What I didn't? The dishes. Part of the problem is that my dishwasher (Sofia) was broken. We had a glue gun incident. Sofia shoved in a fresh glue stick, and a big, hot lump of glue came out, landing on her knee. It's still there. We didn't want to pull it off and take skin with it. Anyhow, when she instinctively tried to brush off the hot glue, it also stuck to and burned her hand. It was a sad, sad day, and Sofia's only consolation was that, in light of her injuries, I gave her the week off from hated dish duty. She has a new-found respect for the dangerous nature of glue guns.

Even though I gave Sofia the week off, I didn't exactly pick up the slack. I'm too obsessed with my flagstone path. I spent the morning going to Morrison Gravel for...gravel. Duh! ...and sand, if you want to get technical. A long morning of labor for a 3-foot section. I'm thinking about contracting out the next 17 feet. I don't think I can go that long without doing the dishes.